• Question: I am emailing psychology departments in my local area in the hope of gaining work experience in preparation for University and personal statements. What could I say to make me stand out from the crowd or sway the odds in my favour?

    Asked by anon-361559 on 28 Mar 2023.
    • Photo: Eileen Xu

      Eileen Xu answered on 28 Mar 2023:

      It always looks really good if you’ve looked into the research that people in the department do. Talking about work experience is good on a personal statement, just make sure that everything is relevant to your degree. I think being motivated and eager to learn is the most important thing though!

    • Photo: Hannah Fawcett

      Hannah Fawcett answered on 28 Mar 2023:

      Think about what you could bring to the researchers, rather than solely what you would gain from the experience. Academics are very busy and worry that someone on work experience may take a lot of time to supervise. Show that you can be flexible, hardworking and work independently and you will stand a better chance of success. Think about providing examples of situations where you have demonstrated these traits, rather than simply stating that you are a good independent worker.

    • Photo: Birsu Kandemirci

      Birsu Kandemirci answered on 28 Mar 2023:

      That’s very impressive that you took the initiative to email psychology departments and asked for work experience. If I was receiving an email like that, I would like to see if you had any specific areas of psychology that you were interested in. Of course you wouldn’t want to make it sound like you would only want to gain experience in one area, but sometimes this can give the recipient of that email an idea about who to forward your email to rather than a generic “I want to gain experience in Psychology”. I hope it makes sense. If you are unsure about the different areas of Psychology (or which one you are interested in), this webpage can give you an initial idea: https://www.bps.org.uk/getting-started and this can give more specific ideas about different career pathways: https://www.bps.org.uk/career-options-psychology I would say just browse the BPS’s website in general!

      I know that it might be a bit too early to know what you want to specialise in, but to give the recipient of the email an idea about future ambitions might look very good and the same goes for your personal statements too. I hope this helps and fingers crossed for a work experience opportunity 🙂

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